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I’m not quite done with Ozzie, but I had to pause for one good reason and two bad ones.

One: I have a lot of work to do (good).

Two: Just to make sure I found the work more tiring than usual, I got a change-of-seasons head cold (bad).

Three: Last night, as I was on my way to bed, I was just sorting myself out with a glass of water and turning off the electrical stuff in my living room. I’ve been working in there for the past few weeks, so aside from the huge silk cushions, velvet drapes and walnut-veneered occasional tables, there are plenty of blue, green, amber and red lights which glow quietly in the dark scented recess, murmuring smugly to each other, “we are industrial ambience” and “we are expensive” and “we melt ice-caps”. Holding my goodnight glass of London tap water, I crossed the room like I have a thousand times to hit the wall switch.

I had one of those “where is it?” moments when I anticipated that a chair would be there, and it wasn’t. I stumbled, fell forward, wacked my chin and lower lip on a table, the hand holding the glass smashed into the wall, and pouring water all over my most expensive computer and sending a 500GB hardrive crashing to the floor, I managed to cut my hand up pretty badly.

It was bloody. It was deep. It was 12.45am. I stood in the bathroom (for my american readers, that’s the room with the bath in it) staining the sink, the floor and my clothing red, while I tried to work out why my hand was dripping so much of myself into the sewerage system. Then I saw my thumb. Ah, I thought, thumb bad.

Thankfully, I didn’t need stitches, and I was able to wash out the small shards of glass in the various wounds very quickly. I look shit this morning – my face still looks like it was on the receiving end of a smack in the mouth from an irate boyfriend – and my knee hurts, something I didn’t even notice last night, what with the drama of saving my nice linen shirt.

The bad news is that I will not play bass next Monday, as I had planned. I will also have to postpone my round-the-world hitch-hike, avoid the Colosseum, and curtail my mobile phone texting while the thumb heals. The good news is that I still have the use of my hand after what could have been a truly disabling accident.

The moral of this story is: do not when tired and unwell walk across dark rooms carrying glass.

For those patient readers who have followed the unfolding story of Ozzie, there is at least one more part to come, if I can avoid maiming any more digits.

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This thing has 5 Comments

Ouch! That’s horrible, especially for a bass player (the equivalent of someone smacking me in the chops). By the way, we in the unwashed midwestern United States still have baths in our bathrooms (otherwise, they are call lavatories).

I eagerly await more installments of Ozzie (you are such a good writer!).